1001 Books 116/1001- 'Dracula' or 'Horror Stories, You're Doing it Right'

FINALLY a book review where I have something good to say! I cannot tell you (whoever you are) how long it has been since I read a good book. I was starting to give up hope of finding something half decent on the 1001 list!

I can not believe I waited this long to read 'Dracula', everyone has read 'Dracula', my boyfriend has even read 'Dracula', and he mostly just reads books with pictures (and by that I mean comic books, not kids books, LOVE YA DARLING). I always got the impression I wouldn't like it, that it paled into significance compared to 'Frankenstein' and that Stoker was a one hit wonder. But I was wrong, I was like hella wrong. 'Dracula' rocked my world with its awesome epistolary style (yeah that's right I took English Lit A level), it's kick ass women and its genuinely evil vampire dude. The descriptions were awesome, the atmosphere was creepy and the characters were well written and likeable.

So what made me think I wouldn't like 'Dracula'? Well maybe it was everything it spawned! Don't get me wrong I love quite a bit of the modern vampire stuff, particularly Joss Whedon's version. I grew up with Buffy and her kick ass ways, and my heart melted when Angel came on screen just like every other teenage girl. As for Twilight, I'm ashamed to say I read the whole series (I know I know this is a shocking revelation, but when you work in a bookshop it's easier to have read the current 'big thing' because everyone is always going on about it, I read 'Da Vinci Code for the same reason) and while I was probably more into the werewolves, there was something about that sparkley fellow Edward.

But they weren't vampires. Seriously they weren't, Angel and Edward were both vampires that didn't act like vampires, and that was what made them attractive. They don't suck your blood, but the fact that they could if they wanted to kinda gives your make out sessions that hint of danger that girls love. The REAL vampires, the bad guys, the ones that actually suck your blood, well they are kinda icky and ugly.

And that is why Dracula was a nice refreshing change, he IS a bad guy, and not a bad-guy-who-had-something-terrible-happen-to-him-like-having-his-true-love-murderer-in-front-of-his-eyes-and-we-can-totally-get-why-he-is-doing-all-this kinda bad guy; no he's just bad. Evil. End of. The heroine doesn't have a crush on him (no SHE DOESN'T Francis Ford Coppola, so why did you make Winona Ryder go all gooey eyed over him? grr) he isn't described as in any way attractive and he is completely ruthless. There is no heart of gold under that thousand year old Transylvanian chest, and when he is defeated there is nothing but glee from the characters and the reader.

So having a vampire villain who is ACTUALLY a villain has an interesting and very pleasing effect on the female characters in this book- they KICK MOTHERTRUCKING VAMPIRE ASS! Seriously Mina Harker is awesome, she has intelligence, independence and integrity. She sticks by her, frankly at times a bit wussy husband, not because she feels she must (there are plenty of times when she is encouraged to 'turn back' and 'stay away' from the whole vampire hunting affair) but because she loves him. And she doesn't assist by making tea and looking pretty but by correlating information and completing research. Furthermore, when the lads decide to cut her out of the vampire hunting and 'go it alone' they cock it all up and poor Mina ends up getting bitten- it is only by working together that they are able to defeat Dracula. Mina Harker is an outstanding role model, and all right at times her part in it all is more like a secretary, but considering this book was written in 1897 it is still pretty damn impressive.

Now I'm not suggesting that Buffy doesn't kick ass because, frankly, she kicks tonnes of it, but her weakness is always her love for Angel (and in later series Spike). When he goes all evil on her ass she turns into a weeping jibbering wreck. OK she eventually pulls it together, but it isn't her finest moment. As for Bella, well she becomes a drooling loved up mess from the moment she meets Edward, and even contemplates killing herself when he buggers off. OK she reads books and is fairly smart, but in the end she decides not to go to university so she can stay home and marry her highschool boyfriend and have his mutant babies, I mean come on! Mina Harker would have slapped the silly bint round the face, told her to man up and put a stake in her hand. Mina didn't want to snog Dracula, she wanted to cut of his head because he upset her husband and killed her best friend. She was out for revenge, and didn't let any undead lothario get in her way.  Somehow in the past 100 years, when we've made such vast leaps forward when it comes to gender equality, we need to look back to see an example of a powerful heroine when it comes to vampire writing. What is it about the 'fanged ones' that makes us go all girly and weak, it's weird right?

1001 Books 115/1001- 'On The Road', or 'How To Get Famous Writing A Book Without A Plot: The Jack Kerouac Story'

Lets just make one thing perfectly clear, I hated this book, I hated its guts. This was not a good book.

Now for some more profound rambling. I read 'On The Road' as part of my continued efforts to complete the '1001 Books to Read Before you Die' marathon that consumes my autistic mind. 'On The Road' is part of damn near every one of those lists of great books and I figured so many compliers of lists of great books could not be wrong. Right?

I know what I expected from 'On The Road', I expected a profound story of a journey across America where some young men would eventually realise something deep and meaningful about life and would finish their adventure somehow wiser and more enlightened than they were previously. Now I can dig that, I mean plenty of stories involve a journey, hell if you get all metaphysical and what-not every book is a journey of some kind, even if it is just the journey the reader goes on to learn more about the characters (oh-eer). I did the travelling thing (briefly) in my younger, more carefree days and I believe it made me a better person. OK I kinda expected the message at the end of this book to be something I thought would be a bit wanky, pretentious and daft, but I expected to be essentially pleased that the youths were more than they once were because the hit the road.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The two main characters (both of whom have ridiculous names BTW, if you wrote a book with Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty as the main characters now-a-days most publishers would probably expire laughing) are young, irritating, drug taking, alcoholic, law breaking, womanising, chauvinistic thugs at the beginning AND at the end of the book. They don't develop, they don't become something, they don't see the error of their ways or develop deep political convictions, they fuck about causing nothing but distress to everyone they encounter and then they the steal a car and drive to another city and proceed to FUCK EVERYONE OVER ONCE MORE!

Never mind the deeply unattractive message this sends to the reader, most of whom I gather are teenage boys, but what about say, I don't know, A PLOT. There is no story here, in the best part of 300 pages the two main characters drive from New York to San Francisco umteen times, often getting to their destination and then driving back after a matter of hours. They regularly pass through the same towns on their journey, normally with the narrator mentioning a car they stole or a girl they slept with or a bar they drank in last time they were in town (yeah I know you did it like 30 pages ago I REMEMBER), but there is nothing built on to that. Not 'there is a girl I slept with 6 months ago- oh look now she has gotten married', no that would involve some direction from this author, they just mention something that happened before and then shrug their shoulders and keep going.

The bonkers character Dean gets married 3 times in the book and leaves each wife at some point to shack up with another one, leaving them with his kids to raise and no money, and this is just OK. It's fine for Dean to do this, and to leave his wife because she objects to him spending all their money on a fancy car and then driving it across the country to go have a drink with someone on the opposite coast and then drive it back and ruin it in the first place AND FURTHERMORE DO THIS ABOUT A GAZILLION TIMES. Not only are these wives unreasonable, but Dean will hit them in the heat of an argument and will find other more dutiful women who will do nothing but smile and cook dinner and proceed to tell them that is how a woman should be. Oh yeah and on several occasions he abandons his friends, including in another country, so he can run off with a different woman. This guy is a total scumbag, Jeremy Kyle would seriously kick his ass, yet I get the impression we're supposed to love him. The narrator, Sal, thinks the sun shines out of this guys backside, even when Dean abandons him half dead of dysentery in Mexico City!

Furthermore what is with the 'stream of conscience' thing? The whole book is written like a poorly edited diary- 'I woke up, and then I ate some breakfast and then I smoked some tea, and then I drove to Denver and then I drank a bottle of whiskey and then I slept with a girl and then I washed my face and then I met up with my friend Ed and then I DIED OF BOREDOM'. I mean seriously the whole thing read like that the whole way through, not to mention pages and pages describing music and bands. The pages just drag on and on in the same boring monotonous tone so you start to forget which town their in and what car their stealing or who one of the many MANY 'friends' that they seem to have in every town is.

Now I know Kerouac wrote the whole thing very quickly on one long piece of paper or some other gimmicky drivel that every hipster will be super keen to tell me, but honestly I don't get it. If Kerouac is so brilliant and revolutionary then why is he writing a book that encouraged young men to act like dicks? This was written in the late 40's/early 50's- men had been acting like dicks for centuries but were just starting to change. Others have suggested to me that the reason I didn't like this was because I didn't read it as a teenager, but honestly even at 16 I'm pretty sure nothing about they characters would ever have appealed to me. I never wanted to be a skint drunken bum with a tendency to screw over my friends and any member of the opposite sex- am I in the minority? So now I am seriously wondering what it is that makes so many people totally love this book? Seriously what? I really want to know.


         

Lancaster Book Group- Daughters of Witching Hill and all the other Pendle Witchy books

So I haven't posted in a while. My bad.
Anyhoo this month my book group decided to take things in a more supernatural direction. Living in Lancaster as we do we could hardly fair to know about the infamous Pendle Witches, hung in this very town almost exactly 400 years ago just up the road from where we meet. The witches trial, well documented by clerk Thomas Potts, has sparked the imagination of many. The most famous novel associated with these poor unfortunate souls is probably Robert Neill's 'Mist Over Pendle', which I read as a teenager going to that all to common 'gothic' phase. It was written in the early 50's, and took the view that the witches were probably stupid dirty ragamuffins who didn't know any better and we should pity them. Also Roger Nowell (the magistrate that accused the witches) was a kindly old gentleman who didn't really want to hang the crazy peasants and he had a cousin who is BATSHIT CRAZY about NEW DRESSES.

Before Mr. Neill and his DRESS OBSESSION (seriously, it's a good 12 years since I read this and the main thing I can remember is how much the cousin went on about having a new dress, and fabrics for that dress and designs for kirtles and OH GOD KILL ME NOW) we had to rely on William Ainsworth and his 1849 'The Lancashire Witches'. Now I have a copy of this and I haven't read it (again, my bad) but given that I have read the last page and the witches GET BURNT AT THE HISTORICALLY INACCURATE STAKE (so never happened to any witches in England) I think I can categorically state that I won't be impressed.  It's fair to say then that the old witches were due a new novel, perhaps by someone who can actually be bothered to read the account of the trial (available here for free so no excuses) and doesn't get distracted by a nice bonnet and velvet cuff.

So American Mary Sharratt took up the call. I'd get all irate about her not being British and never having been to the arse end of rural nowhere that is Pendle (I can say that I'm from round there) but credit where credit is due the woman lived over here for a while, so kudos to her.
Sharratt takes the approach of 'the witches were poor but kindly healing wise women who did lots of good but were cruelly treated by 'da man' and were forced into being a bit naughty sometimes'. This is a much more PC interpretation, full of feminist thought on medieval witchcraft (see Mary Daly, and then run away) where cruel, heartless men-folk burn those adorable old midwives with their healing herbs and fondness for the 'old ways' and then go away to chortle and drink claret. I'm not saying that was wrong, hell I wasn't there I dunno, but it all just sounds a bit to simple and straightforward to me. History is never as easy as it looks, in 200 years 9/11 will be some 'naughty' Muslims attacking kind hearted, innocent America for no good reason. We know, we lived through it, is was WAY more complicated than that.

So anyway, enough of my witchy ranting, what about the goddamn book? Well it was alright, it was all a bit simple, the witches were good, the rich men-folk were bad and there was a few 'oooh was it witchcraft or just a big coincidence' moments to get you tapping your chin in intrigue. It was told first person all the way through, between either Demdike (the classic grandma witch) and her pretty but naive granddaughter Alizon. This worked well until the bit where Alizon got hung, and we were with the narrative right up until she heard the executioner let her drop which just left you going 'well how in the name of all that is Lancastrian did she ever write this down' which spoiled it somewhat. Somewhat short sighted for an experienced author. Otherwise I liked it, it kept me reading, I found no major historical inaccuracies and it was mostly believable if a little idealistic.

In a few months Jeanette Winterson publishes her own take on the Pendle Witches, who are fast become the new Spice Girls. Will you take historically inaccurate-witch Ainsworth, clothing obsessed witch Neill, men hating witch Sharratt or new and improved lesbian witch Winterson. Take your pick readers!